LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Paging Lisa Page and Much, Much More. “The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed former DOJ lawyer Lisa Page for testimony today and her lawyer says she will not be showing up as demanded.”
Archive for 2018
July 11, 2018
WOULD A RUSSIAN PUPPET SAY THIS? “Angela, you need to stop buying gas from Putin.”
AUTOMATION: Oil’s New Technology Spells End of Boom for Roughnecks. “One of the last industries where blue-collar laborers can earn high salaries is being transformed as artificial intelligence and automation replace workers.”
The energy sector had been shielded from pressure to innovate by high oil prices. When prices fell 75% over 20 months beginning in 2014, oil and gas companies were finally forced to modernize to squeeze out profits. Many found they could use new technologies to do the work better and cheaper, with fewer people. They have invested billions of dollars on what the industry dubs “digital oil fields,” embracing artificial intelligence, automation and other technologies.
Oil prices are back up to their highest levels in more than three years. U.S. production has topped record levels, hitting 10.9 million barrels a day in the last week of June, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, compared with its high of 9.6 million in 2015. But as of May, nationwide oil and gas employment is down 21% since 2014, according to state and federal data compiled by Karr Ingham, an economist for the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, an industry group.
That’s a huge hit.
IMPACT: Older immigrants ‘crowding out’ US teens for summer jobs.
In his analysis, Camarota found that employers are seizing on older immigrants, often over 20 and with some working experience, instead of U.S. teens to fill summer jobs. And another driving factor, he said, may be that immigrants are willing to work for a lower wage.
While good for immigrants, he cited research that it can be devastating for U.S. teens. Shut out of a summer job, they often have difficulty in the workforce for years.
“Teens employed in high school earn more than teens who did not work in the first year after graduation, with wage differences tending to increase over time. Also, teens who were employed in high school are more likely to be employed and work more hours during the year, with a significant relationship between hours worked in high school and subsequent hours worked and wages earned,” said the report.
Not a huge surprise.
IT DOESN’T COUNT IF YOU GET THIS RESULT WITHOUT EXPANDING GOVERNMENTAL POWER: CO2 Emissions Hit 67-Year Low In Trump’s America, As Rest-Of-World Rises.
HERE’S MORE ON THAT IMPORTANT FIRST/SECOND AMENDMENT CASE I MENTIONED YESTERDAY: The Government Will Allow Cody Wilson’s Defense Distributed to Distribute Gun-Making Software.
The Justice Department has reached a settlement with the Second Amendment Foundation and Defense Distributed, a collective that organizes, promotes, and distributes technologies to help home gun-makers. Under the agreement, which resolved a suit filed by the two groups in 2015, Americans may “access, discuss, use, reproduce or otherwise benefit from the technical data” that the government had previously ordered Defense Distributed to cease distributing.
Before this, the feds had insisted that Defense Distributed’s gun-making files violate the munitions export rules embedded in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Defense Distributed’s suit claimed that this was was “censorship of Plaintiffs’ speech,” since the files in question consist of computer code and thus counted as expression. It also argued that “the ad hoc, informal and arbitrary manner in which that scheme is applied, violate the First, Second, and Fifth Amendments.” (The Second because the information in the computer files implicates weapons possession rights.)
In what is a very unusual move in ITAR actions, the government will pay more than $39,000 of the plaintiffs’ legal and administrative fees. Cody Wilson, chieftain of Defense Distributed, tells Wired that this is only about 10 percent of what they’ve spent.
That Wired story is mostly devoted to scaring the reader about what a world in which people are freer to use computer files to make weapons at home might mean. Wilson is open that as far as he’s concerned, he’s killed the cause of gun control by popularizing the home construction of weapons via computer instructions.
Wired also speculates that the settlement is some sign of a Trump administration bending over backwards to satisfy a Second Amendment constituency. Alan Gura, one of the lawyers on the plaintiffs’ side—and the attorney who won both 2008’s Heller case and 2010’s McDonald, two major Supreme Court victories for gun rights—disagrees, noting the administration’s record in other ongoing Second Amendment cases.
“This administration maintained the Obama DOJ’s cert petition in Binderup (denied 7-2), and has consistently opposed all other as-applied Second Amendment challenges, including Kanter (they won, Kanter appealed), Hatfield (they lost and just appealed), Medina (they won and Medina, repped by me on appeal, appealed, argument 9/11), and Reyes (being litigated now…),” Gura says in an email today. “They have also continued defending the appeal in Mance [regarding gun purchases across state lines]—they had over a year to change their mind, see the light, and admit that the district court was right, but they stuck to their appeal which unfortunately they won, and are defending against the currently-pending en banc petition. There are other cases they defend, some of course less meritorious, but any notion that Trump is pro-gun and having DOJ roll over would be fantasy.”
The more likely factor behind the settlement, Gura believes, is that the government “realized that not a single 5th Circuit judge offered that they were likely to succeed on the merits. To the contrary, the centerpiece of their victory was that they could somehow avoid the merits. When they could avoid the merits no longer, suddenly the national security threat faded away.”
Wired is a sad shadow of its former self. And I want to point out that this started with a 2014 Tennessee Law Review symposium on the Second Amendment.
THAT’S (NOT) A MAN, BABY: Infighting at Business Insider Over Pulled Column on Transgender Issues. “Conservative columnist defended casting Scarlett Johnansson as a trans man.”
Greenbaum’s column (which can be found cached, here) took issue with criticism Johansson and her colleagues faced after her casting as trans male in the soon-to-be-released film Rub and Tug. The reasoning given by BI was that the column violated the the publication’s editorial standards (which seem to have been established, or re-established, ex-post facto). How can someone who isn’t trans, portray a trans character, so goes the argument.
As reported earlier today by the Daily Beast, BI global editor-in-chief Nich Carlson, announced via email that henceforth all “‘culturally sensitive columns, analysis, and opinion pieces’ would now be reviewed by the company’s executive editors before publication.” So now Business Insider has editorial standards. Great. But how, exactly, does it plan to implement them?
I’m not sure how, but I am certain in which direction.
WHEN THE OVERTON WINDOW TURNS OUT TO BE PAINTED SHUT: Democrats Break With Left On Abolishing ICE. Polls show it’s only popular with Democrats and leftists.
21ST CENTURY STRUGGLES: The electric scooter wars are entering a new phase.
#WALKAWAY: The Democratic Party left me behind — and I’m not alone. “I’m no Trump supporter, but I’ve been repulsed by the political and cultural left’s hatred, demonization and mistreatment of the president.”
SIGNALING VIRTUE SIGNALING: I confronted Scott Pruitt in a restaurant. I’d do it again in a second. “We’ve all got to do what we can.”
Some say it wasn’t “civil” of me to approach Pruitt at lunch and that it’s a sign of dark times ahead for our political climate. But these arguments are not genuine: The bogus “civility” argument has arisen because conservatives are losing on the content of the arguments.
The truth is that this administration doesn’t want the media to pay attention to protesters who chanted through Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s dinner for her leading role in separating children from their families at the border. This administration wants to distract from the fact that the owner of the Red Hen refused service to Sarah Huckabee Sanders because she’s publicly defended both Trump’s desire to bar transgender people from the military and his despicable “zero tolerance” policy that’s ripped apart immigrant families.
Focusing on where, when, or how a concerned citizen speaks up is what a person does when they don’t have an adequate response to the concerns being voiced.
Kristin Mink is confused. Her freedom of speech doesn’t require that anyone pay her any attention, and if her side were winning on “content,” then she and others wouldn’t be resorting to incivility.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Oberlin College outlook downgraded to ‘Negative’ by credit rating agencies. Get woke, go broke.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Temple Business School Dean Fired For Knowingly Submitting False Data To Inflate U.S. News Ranking Over Several Years.
OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: California City Will Experiment with $500/Month Universal Basic Income. “Stockton is selecting 100 residents to receive the money with no strings attached.”
TO BE FAIR, IT’S OVER 100 YEARS OLD AND HARD TO UNDERSTAND: Democrats Don’t Fear Brett Kavanaugh, They Fear The Constitution. “Originalists will preserve the constitutional order. And that’s a big problem for progressives.”
LAYERS OF EDITORS AND FACT-CHECKERS: WaPo Quotes Satirical Website Clickhole as Authoritative Source.
But it’s okay: “The Post corrected the story after four hours.”
WHY? SCIENCE IS NOT FAITH: Elizabeth Warren: EPA Administrator Must Believe in Climate Change.
WELL! THEY JUST NEED MORE OF IT FORCE-FED TO THEM: But do the Young Readers Want to Read It?
MY FACE, IT IS SHOCKED: Clinton Charity Money Again Going to Clinton Foundation After Hiatus.
THE … ER… WHAT? Michelle Wolf Does the Abortion Limbo.
FOR THE TIMES THEY ARE ACHANGING: Teresa May’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Brexit Day.